Thinking EdTech: Online Teaching Reflections

Monday, June 18, 2007

Online Teaching Reflections

I just finished teaching a five week summer online educational technology course. As mentioned in the previous post, it was my first experience with teaching online. There were some significant benefits to the online format - flexibility of time and space, accessibility to materials, and increased student responsibility. I also liked being able to archive class interactions through e-mail, chat, and discussion boards; because of this, I felt that I was able to give more specific feedback on course content, assignments, and other class activities.

Some students struggled at the beginning of the course with adjusting to the online format; most of these students worked out these adjustments and were successful in the course. Some students hit the ground running, completing many assignments and tests ahead of the course schedule; a few of these students lost steam towards the end of the course and finished poorly. While I have seen similar trends in the face-to-face environment, I think that overall some students will find the online format more suitable to their style of learning than others.

In reflection of this teaching online experience, I think one of the most important elements that made it a positive one is communication. All communication between myself and students and among the students was text-based. Knowing this, I attempted to make all my communications with the students clear and redundant. I posted weekly pop-up announcements, e-mailed copies of these announcements to the students, and mentioned them in the weekly chat sessions. I used bulleted and numbered lists in announcements and assignments. Even though assignment due dates were posted on the syllabus and in the assignment information areas, I reminded students of these due dates in the announcements as well. In the chat sessions, I wrote informally and used a different text color to distinguish my comments from the others. I tried to define terms in my writing that may have been unfamiliar to the students. I created graphic headers for each week's announcement, so that students could quickly recognize when a new announcement had been posted.

The students who were successful often asked questions during the chat sessions or through e-mail to clarify assignment requirements, lesson content, and test questions. Because I could not sense confusion through non-verbal signals, as I would in the face-to-face environment, it was up to the students to ask questions when they were confused or unclear about course matters. When one student would ask a question during a chat session, oftentimes other students would comment that they were wondering the same thing.

Labels: online learning

posted by SG @ 11:00 AM

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